BLTN Newsletter 10.15.24

Bread Loaf Teacher Network News and Resources

In this issue...

From Santa Fe to Singapore: BLTN's Change Action Grants Support Conflict Transformation
NCTE '24: See You in Boston?
You're Invited to the Bread Loaf Winter Institute, February 21-23, 2025
Fellow Focus: Dr. Ashlynn Wittchow (MA '18)
Louisville Site to Host NextGen Gathering
Lofi Beats from the U.S. Department of Education

Santa Fe Indian School

Congratulations to the 2024-25 BLTN Change Action Grant recipients. We received nearly twice the requests we could fund this year for work supporting the goals of the Kathryn Wasserman Davis Collaborative in Conflict Transformation. We are pleased to announce BLTN support for the following projects.

Mackensi Crenshaw (Louisville, KY): A project cultivating oral histories in collaboration with Middlebury College's Beyond the Page actors;
Jennifer Coreas (San Salvador, El Salvador): "Tirando la biblio por la ventana: Diálogos por sobre las diferencias" ("Books Unleashed: Dialogues across Differences"), a week of literacy activities engaging stakeholders in 35 public schools;
Hailey Elles (Sharon, VT): Food for a literacy night with Kenneth Caddow, author of Gather;
Bobby Harley, (Gastonia, NC): Media kits for participation in What's the Story: The Young Filmmakers' Social Action Team;
Rabiah Khalil (Singapore): "Re-futuring Dystopia," a collaboration between school colleagues and Beyond the Page (BtP) to facilitate student story creation through embodiment, writing, and performance;
Mimi Marstaller (Lewiston, ME): A project welcoming newly arrived immigrant students to Maine;
Susan Miera (Santa Fe, NM): Support for student-led, culturally focused writing workshops and Senior Honors projects;
Marianela Rivera (Lowell, MA): Publication of an anthology of Andover Bread Loaf and BLTN educators' writing;
Alex O'Brien (S. Burlington, VT): An advisory council to improve the school district’s support of multilingual student and family needs.

Canadian International School of Singapore

Please let us know if you plan to present at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) conference in Boston, November 21-24. We'd like to publish a list of BLTN presenters in our November issue. If you're a Boston-area BLTNer, and you plan to attend, contact Tom McKenna about details for a possible meetup. In any case, stop by the Bread Loaf booth in the vendor area, and say hello.

Ready for another enriching weekend at Bread Loaf?! This year, the Winter Institute will be February 21-23, 2025 and you can earn 13 professional development hours though workshops and creative exercises. This year’s theme is Reading Across Difference, and we have a brand-new slate of engaging workshops on offer.

You will learn how interactive performance-based teaching can work in your classroom and hear from youth about the impact of community-based learning. When the session concludes, you can choose to cross-country or downhill ski at Middlebury’s Rikert Nordic Center or Discover more on our Winter Institute website or reach out to us at blse@middlebury.edu with your questions.

Having successfully defended her dissertation, The Whisperings of an Old Pine: More-Than-Human Histories at the Bread Loaf School of English, Dr. Ashlynn Wittchow received her PhD from Columbia University last May.

Ashlynn is now an Assistant Professor of English Education at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. "The Bread Loaf Teacher Network has fundamentally shaped who I am," writes Wittchow, "both as an educator and as a scholar. Although it has been several years since I have last stepped foot on the mountain, I carry its lessons with me wherever I go. Now, I am grateful to share those lessons with my current preservice teachers at Louisiana State University."

Dr. Wittchow will be presenting "Living Our Lineages: Considering Contemporary Applications for the History of English Education" on Thursday, November 21 at NCTE. See next month's issue for a BLTN presentation schedule.

Have you recently changed jobs, or published a piece, or added a degree? We'd love to share your news and achievements. Please reach out to Tom McKenna.

Youth and mentors from Santa Fe Indian School, La Casa Roja (Navajo Nation), and Aiken (South Carolina) will be hosted by BLTN NextGen Louisville youth November 7-10. Cross-site visits are key components to learning across difference in the youth social action and leadership network. The Louisville team is planning a school visit, a visit to the Muhammad Ali Center (pictured above), the Louisville Zoo, and other local sites. They will facilitate writing and strategy sessions for cross-site collaboration. Learn more about the NextGeneration Leadership Network on the BLTN website.

The U.S. Department of Education shares this Spotify playlist. Although we're now well beyond "back to school" time, we thought you might enjoy a listen.

"Stay focused and relaxed with ‘Back to School,’ a Pomodoro playlist of chill lofi beats perfect for studying or working."

Please notify us of accomplishments you’d like to share in the monthly newsletter. We're also interested in promoting reader resource sharing. Do you have a unit you'd like to share or a topic you'd like to discuss? Be in touch.

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